Chapter 14: The Man in Florida

Nathaniel's POV

She read the whole folder at my kitchen island, and she did not say one word to me while she did it.

At six in the morning she closed the cover and looked up.

"Friday," Imogen said. "We do Friday. After that, we talk about you."

"All right."

"Where are you going?"

"Florida."

"Rule four," she said. "You call."

It was the first thing she'd said to me in hours that sounded like she meant for me to come back.

I took it onto the plane with me.

The retired officer lived in a pale yellow house with a boat on a trailer in the drive.

My father had helped him buy it, and it showed in every window.

I rang the bell at one in the afternoon, wearing the same coat I'd worn at the grave.

A woman in a sun hat opened the door.

"Is your husband home?" I asked.

"Who's asking?"

"The man whose name he signed on a police report four years ago."

She looked at my face for a long moment.

Then she called over her shoulder, very quietly, and a thin old man came down the hall in a golf shirt.

He saw me, and he stopped.

"Mr. Lathrop," he said.

"You know me."

"I've seen you in my sleep."

He didn't ask me to leave.

He took me out to the screened porch and sat down heavily, and his wife stood in the doorway with her hands wrapped in her apron.

"I won't hurt you," I said. "I've come to ask one question, and I'm going to film the answer."

I set my phone on the glass table, and he looked at it for a long time.

"Did you see me driving that car?"

"No."

"Did you see me anywhere near the driver's seat?"

"No." His voice was dry. "You were already on the stretcher when I got there. The driver's door was open and the seat was empty."

"Then who put my name on the report?"

He covered his mouth with his hand.

"Your father's lawyer brought it to my car at four in the morning, already typed. He said sign here, and the family will be very grateful."

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